He started poking at Simon’s phone and mumbling to himself. In a few minutes he looked up and said, “Ready.”
“How sure are you that this will work?” said Ivy.
“Pretty sure,” said Holmes.
“What if you miss?”
“What can he do to us that he can’t already do?”
“Right,” said Ivy. “Go on then.”
Holmes put the phone to the crack. There was a whiz and a crackle and a moment later Blixus yelled, “Ow. What was that?”
“More,” said Amanda.
Holmes grabbed the phone, twiddled something, and replaced it. The whizzing started again.
“Ouch!” yelled Nick. “Oh, it’s you, Holmes. Tough guy, are you?”
Holmes zapped him again, the expression on his face frightening. Amanda had never seen him like this before. Why hadn’t she understood that he could hate so much—and that it was her fault he did? Here had been this smart, self-assured, happy boy, and she’d turned him into a mess. What was wrong with her? Why was she always ruining everything?
Nick laughed. "So, Lestrade, I hear you think Holmes here is a dork. Or do you? I know you two were canoodling on that ridiculous tram in Windermere. Boy, you just love 'em and leave 'em, don’t you?"
Holmes winced. Amanda was about to say something when Nick interrupted her.
“Just as I thought. I can hear the pain seeping through the rock. You gotta watch out for her, Holmes. I’d be careful if I were you too, Binkle, or you’ll be next.”
Holmes zapped him again, harder, then harder again. The bursts were no longer controlled. It was as if he was letting all his wrath out and it was concentrated on one point: Nick Moriarty. Nick shrieked with each blast. Editta screamed, “Nick!”
There was silence for a moment, and then Nick yelled, “Get away from me, Editta. I don’t want you. I never wanted you. I don’t care what my dad thinks of you. You’re a lunatic.”
“But I love you,” screamed Editta.
“Get lost.”
“You’re an idiot, Editta,” said David. “Go stick a pin in a doll or something.”
“Shut up, David,” Editta screamed. “You’re just like your father.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said David.
“Shut up, all of you,” yelled Blixus. “Someone help me. I’ve broken my arm.”
“Blixus!” yelled Editta. “Here I am.”
The friends on the other side of the wall looked at each other. Editta had truly left them behind. What was really weird was that she seemed to be tighter with Blixus than with Nick.
“Lestrade,” said Nick. “See what you’re missing? You could have had all this if you’d just killed your father.”
Amanda was so angry she wanted to walk right through the rock and punch him in the nose.
“What did your parents do to you to make you like this?” she said.
Nick laughed. “You wish you had parents like mine. Come on, Lestrade. You know you love the dark side. Isn’t that what you told me?”
“I said no such thing.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I seem to remember you telling me that Professor Moriarty was romantic.”
“Shut up.”
“Did you really say that?” said Clive.
Amanda was horrified. Nick had taken her words out of context and made her look like a monster in front of her friends. “I didn’t know anything then. I’m a different person now.”
“You were really like that?” said Harry. “Good for you.”
Amanda screamed, “I wasn’t! He fooled me. And you’re just envious, Harry Sheriff. You wish you could do something really well—anything other than flex your muscles. You’re nothing but a spoiled brat. You’re not even that good looking.”
Simon, Clive, and Professor Kindseth stood there with their mouths open. Ivy screamed for them to shut up, then dissolved into tears. Nigel whined.
Holmes gave Blixus and Nick another whap. This time he turned up the juice even higher and Editta started to scream again. “They’re turning colors. Stop it, Scapulus! They can’t move. You’re killing them!”
But Holmes couldn’t—or wouldn’t—stop. He let Nick have it over and over again. Each time Nick let out a scream so plaintive that Amanda wanted to drag Holmes away. Finally, in a lull between grunts Nick said, “She’s quite a woman, isn’t she, Holmes? Worth going to prison for, do you think? If I die, that’s exactly what will happen to you.”
Holmes faltered, then broke off the signal. Amanda was furious. A moment ago she’d felt sorry for Nick. Now she wanted Holmes to keep going, to prove to Nick that he was wrong. This wasn’t her fault, Nick wasn’t going to die, and Holmes wasn’t going to prison. He shouldn’t let Nick get to him like that. Except it was her fault—it was all her fault. She’d should have kept herself to herself, remained a one-man band like back in L.A. Relationships just messed everything up.
Suddenly the cavern filled with a tremendous hologram. Hugh’s fingers were poised over the keys of his laptop and he was laughing.
“So that’s the way you want it, Holmesy? Let’s see what you think of this.”
He pressed a key and a purple rainbow slowly filled the space, arcs shooting out of it in different colors. The air crackled with electricity. Nigel screamed as a bolt of red hit him in the snout. Green tendrils snaked out and wrapped themselves around Ivy, squeezing her until she could hardly breathe. Yellow, blue, and orange filaments attacked Harry, Clive, Professor Kindseth, and Simon. Then silver light shot out of the rainbow and encircled Amanda, choking her and making it almost impossible for her to see.
Holmes, a riot of flashing colors, was holding his phone and sending bolts of electricity into the hologram. Hugh was obviously feeling something because he kept wincing and at one point he cried out. In between, though, he was laughing his head off as he manipulated the rainbow, which was now pulsing and looked as if it was getting ready to explode.
“Get out of here, Dad,” said Hugh. “You don’t want to be here for this.” Amanda could hear crashes in the next room. “Here’s some motivation for you. Zap!”
“Hugh, you’re hurting him!” yelled Editta.
“Nonsense,” said Hugh. “It’s good for him.”
There was another crash on the other side of the boulders and Blixus screamed.
“Stop it!” yelled Editta.
“You too, Nicky,” said Hugh, and blasted Nick.
“You little prat!” yelled Nick. “What is wrong with you? You almost killed me.”
“Grab the gold,” yelled Blixus, and Amanda could hear clinking as coins were thrown around. Then the two Moriartys and the two runaways ran out of the camp and down the tunnel, leaving Mavis’s body behind.
Now the battle between Holmes and Hugh escalated. Beams flew everywhere, ricocheting off the cavern’s walls, ceiling, and floor. The entire cavern started to shake. On the other side of the boulders, first one rock, then another and another fell. What started as a trickle became an avalanche, and the chamber roared.
“It’s caving in!” yelled Amanda, but her words were drowned out by the roaring of the rocks falling. In the hologram, Hugh was laughing like a maniac. “Stop it, Hugh! You’re going to kill us.” She turned to the others. “We’ll never get out of here now.”
“Good,” he laughed. “You’re no fun anyway. Goodbye kiddies. Too bad we didn’t get to spend more time together.”
“Stop it, Hugh!” yelled Professor Kindseth. “We’ll make a deal with you.”
“A deal?” said Hugh. “What kind of deal?”
“Let us out and we’ll give you your own lab. You can have any equipment you need in exchange for a promise never to hurt anyone again.”
“You bore me,” said Hugh. “I don’t need your stupid lab. I’ve got more money than I could ever want.”
“Does this feel good to you?” said Amanda. “Hurting people?”
“Yes,” said Hugh. “It feels wonderful. You should try it
sometime, Lestrade. Oh no, wait. You already have. You broke poor Holmesy’s heart.”
Holmes let off a huge yellow bolt, which hit Hugh directly in the forehead. He laughed.
“Can you do that again?” he said. “I’ve got an itch.”
“He’s pure evil,” said Ivy.
“Worse than Blixus,” said Simon.
Holmes let go with a volley of beams that came at Hugh so fast you couldn’t tell one from another. In return Hugh sent out angry balls of lightning, which intercepted Holmes’s bolts and neutralized them. They went back and forth, back and forth, attacking, blocking, attacking and blocking again, until the room was filled with so much energy Amanda’s skin started to buzz. Ivy and Clive had fallen, Nigel was cowering between them, and Simon was woozy. Professor Kindseth was struggling to stand up, and Harry was sitting in a corner looking spaced out. Only Holmes and Amanda were still operating at full capacity.
And then, as Amanda and Holmes watched, a figure entered the hologram, crept up behind Hugh, and hit him over the head with a black figurine. The hologram went dark, but the energy was still there, sparkling. Suddenly a flash of purple broke through the roof of the cavern, filling the space with the light of a perfect rainbow, then blue sky, and the faces of four firemen who had come to the rescue.
The hologram reappeared for a moment and the face of a beautiful dark-haired young girl appeared. She smiled, winked, and said, “No one hurts my brother.” Then she and the hologram disappeared and the rescuers’ ropes descended.
41
Insight
Nigel was the most tricky of the captives to lift out of the cavern, but the firemen were able to throw down some kind of harness and Simon fixed him up. One by one the others were hoisted to safety and wrapped in blankets. Salty Pinchbeck and his partner were up top with their ambulance, as were several other paramedics with theirs. The group was loaded in and taken to the hospital.
As they rode in the ambulance, Simon turned to Amanda and said, “Who was that girl?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “She referred to her brother, but she wasn’t anybody’s sister that we know of.”
“No,” said Simon. “And David doesn’t have a sister, so she didn’t mean him.”
“It doesn’t make any sense.”
Simon laughed. “Maybe she got her signals crossed. Perhaps she was trying to rescue someone else who’d been trapped in a cavern.”
“You don’t think Hugh has done this to other people, do you?” said Amanda.
“I was joking,” said Simon. “But come to think of it, we haven’t heard from Thrillkill.”
“I hope Hugh didn’t get them too,” said Amanda. “Let’s see if we can raise them.”
They both tried to get a video line to the others. The connection was still dead.
“I’m getting worried,” said Amanda. “Maybe Blixus got them when he ran away.”
“Or Taffeta,” said Simon.
“Or Taffeta. Isn’t she a piece of work though?”
“Yes,” said Simon. “Do you suppose she’s related to the Moriartys?”
“They didn’t act like it. I have no idea who she is. Do you think Harry knows?”
“I don’t think he knows much of anything, but we can try to get it out of him.”
Harry did know, as it turned out. They spoke to him in Thrillkill’s office, where Professor Mukherjee was detaining him. Despite the fact that the girl had been a student at the Moriartys’ Schola Scleratorum, the school for criminals they’d established in the sugar factory, he’d become involved with her anyway. He wasn’t bothered about where a girl came from as long as she was hot.
“What do you think will happen to him?” said Amanda afterwards.
“Expelled for sure,” said Simon.
“Jail,” said Clive.
“Maybe they’ll put him in with Manny or Jackie,” said Amanda.
“Ha!” said Simon. “That would be some justice anyway.”
When Amphora saw Holmes return in one piece, she screamed and threw her arms around him. Amanda couldn’t bear to look, so she climbed to the top floor and gazed out the Disguise classroom window. She should speak to him, of course. There was so much to clear up and apologize for, but that could come later, when she’d figured out exactly what to say.
Had things changed as a result of her seeing Nick? She wasn’t sure. His life certainly had. Now that Mavis was dead nothing would be the same for him. Blixus was as mean as ever, and now their buffer was gone. Or had Mavis been as awful to her son as Blixus? Amanda realized she had no idea and might never know. But even if she did, it wouldn’t affect what she’d say to Holmes. Now that he was with Amphora her hands were tied and she should find a way to forget him too. Great. Now she had two impossible problems to solve.
“We never discovered anything about the Bible,” said Ivy when they’d all got together again. “Blixus was very cagey about it.”
“I don’t think he has it,” said Clive. “He’d have been lording it over us if he did.” He looked almost back to normal, except for a scrape he’d got on his face. Amanda was glad nothing worse had happened to him, like being pecked to death by mynah birds.
“He’s not exactly subtle, is he?” said Ivy.
“If he doesn’t have it, then where is it?” said Amanda. “It’s not in the pit where David threw it. That’s been dragged and searched a million times. You don’t think Philip and Gavin took it, do you?”
“From the way they looked in those caverns I’m guessing no,” said Simon. “They didn’t seem too cocky.”
That they didn’t. They’d had weird expressions on their faces, as if they were afraid of Blixus. They even seemed a bit intimidated by Taffeta. Some tough guys.
“Perhaps Mavis retrieved it and never told Blixus,” said Ivy. “Although how could she get it without him seeing?”
“Editta?” said Amanda.
“No way,” said Simon. “She’d never jump into that pit.”
“Eustace didn’t come back and get it, did he?” said Clive.
“Impossible,” said Amanda. Or was it? What did she really know about Eustace anyway? He seemed like a good guy, but she’d been fooled before.
“Then it’s gone,” said Simon. “End of story. Cross it off the list and forget about it.”
“The teachers really will split then,” said Ivy. “Unless Amanda and Scapulus can work a miracle with their film.”
“OMG, the film!” said Amanda. “Is it even worth finishing now?”
“Of course it is,” said Simon. “You should never give up hope. Say, let’s see how your task list looks now.”
Amanda brought up the list and read it off to everyone. She was flabbergasted to see that she had accomplished most of the items on it—with help, of course.
Rescue Editta Sweetgum.
Find Philip Puppybreath and Gavin Niven.
Find out what the key discovered with Wink’s body goes to.
Find the Detective’s Bible.
Solve Wink Wiffle’s murder.
Monitor Professor Redleaf’s computer.
Find attorney and prepare for wrongful death lawsuit.
Make film about our options without the Bible.
Speak to David Wiffle.
“Well, number one’s still there,” said Clive, craning his neck so he could see Amanda’s phone. “We didn’t rescue Editta. We did find her, though. Of course now that she’s run off, she’s missing again.”
“The same is true for Philip and Gavin,” said Ivy. “Except they didn’t run off with Blixus, they ran off with Taffeta.”
“Seems we’re not doing so well,” said Simon, looking at Amanda’s screen. “What’s next?”
“We found the lockbox,” said Amanda. “Cross off number two. Number three, the Bible, we’ve discussed. Should I cross it off?”
“I don’t think Thrillkill will be ready to give up,” said Simon. “Keep it.”
“Okay,” said Amanda, adjusting the various item
s. “But I can cross off number four. We solved Wink’s murder.”
“And number five,” said Clive. “We’ve more than monitored Professor Redleaf’s computer. You can get rid of that.”
Amanda edited some more. “Number six. That’s done. Mr. Onion has taken on our defense. There’s still the preparation to do, though. I’ll change it.”
She deleted the “Find attorney” part of the task, leaving “prepare for wrongful death lawsuit.” Then she looked back at the list. There were only two items left.
“The film. Can’t cross that off. It’s close, though.”
“Thrillkill spoke to David,” said Simon. “Cross off number eight.”
“Poor David,” said Ivy. She was starting to sound like a broken record.
“Pretty good for a few days’ work,” said Simon. “Except that some things are more messed up than before. The Punitori are leaving and Thrillkill, Fern, and Gordon might be missing.”
“We need to go back and look for them,” said Ivy. “Do you think the cave-in reached them?”
“Highly unlikely,” said Clive.
“Are you sure? I’m really worried.”
“Ninety-nine point nine percent,” said Clive, sounding like Simon.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” said Ivy.
“What about Blixus and Taffeta?” said Amanda.
“No point running after them when we’ve got detectives missing,” said Simon logically. “Finding them has to be our number one priority.”
“And Mavis’s body?” said Amanda.
“It’ll have to stay there,” said Clive. “It’ll take ages to dig through that rock.”
“What about Hugh?” said Amanda.
“When we find Thrillkill we’ll make a new list,” said Simon.
Mrs. Wiffle and Mrs. Sweetgum would have to be told about their children, of course. The kids supposed one of the teachers could do that, probably Professor Kindseth since he’d actually seen them. Amanda didn’t envy him. The task was a live grenade. At least the two women would know that their children were alive and relatively healthy. And if the detectives could find them once, they could find them again, so there was that encouragement for him to deliver. Somehow, though, she didn’t think that would calm them down. Both women would explode and probably file a suit against him too.
Amanda Lester, Detective Box Set Page 104
